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| "Is She Alive" by Charleen Touchette |
February 17th : My 53rd birthday was delightful spent surrounded by family. Birthdays make you assess. This year I will get the work and word directly to people across the world through the net following Spiderwoman as a guide. Exclusion, marginalization and stigmatization are tools to neutralize, deny and make invisible, and as a voice in the diaspora of Franco-American literature and art, I stand with Jack Kerouac, David Plante and Rhea Cote to say that we are here and we will tell our own stories. Our collective stories were carried by the Memeres and Peperes, and our connection to our Indian identities are tied to the persistence of the mothers, les mamans, who told us to remember we are Indian. The persistence of the mothers who taught us to honor the earth as our mother and consider the effects of our choices on the relatives and the next generations. Heal the Earth and Honor the Women. Seem like innocent words. Who would argue against the earth and women? But look at what Western culture does to the earth, women, families and children. Speaking truth about what our overconsumption of energy and stuff has done to the earth makes me suspect. Speaking truth about Women's Power makes me a very dangerous woman. If woman knew how powerful we are, we'd stop consuming to fill the hole in our souls, and demand clean air and water and safe healthy food, shelter, education and health care for everyone. We'd reclaim our bodies, spread our legs as women who belong to ourselves, rejoice in our ability to give life, and close our legs to anyone who violates our sisters, our children or our mother earth.
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